


Snakes

by FrostandSilence



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Abuse, Body Horror, I'll add warning tags to this as they come up, M/M, Mental Illness, Multi, Slow Burn, Tendershipping, Thiefshipping, a romance that actually builds over way too long, tornshipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-11-02 04:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10936554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostandSilence/pseuds/FrostandSilence
Summary: When you've lived long enough everything seems to blend into one narrative, one perfect medley of mistakes and failures. When you've been dead for long enough, you learn to stop caring.An AU divergent from canon sometime after Duelist Kingdom and before Battle City.





	1. Prologue

_ Egypt, about 1000 BC _ __  
__  
There are few things that Bakura cared to remember from his time in Egypt.

Most of his memories from that time are things he would rather forget. The harsh weather, the sea of sand that spread out from the horizon in endless, unforgiving waves, the smell of dust and the decrepit places he hid and slept so he could be away from the eyes of authority.

There is one memory, however, still clear in his mind even to this day.

One memory that will never fade, not even with another three thousand years.

It was nearly dusk, and as the warmth of the sun left the world along with its light, Bakura stumbled into his regular haunt, or rather, regular trench, a small ‘dwelling’ built out of wood and woven reeds. It didn’t provide much shelter in the rainy season, nor did it keep out insects, but it provided some tiny bit of protection from the harsh rays of the midday sun and served as a place to hide his ever-growing horde of stolen treasures. A precession of affluent nobles was passed by his hiding place, each more adorned with gold than the last, all unique of face but alike in demeanor. They were, no doubt, headed to pay tribute to the boy-king whose very life haunted his nightmares. The restless spirits inside the Millennium Ring howled with renewed vigor at the prospect of new prey, new vengeance. Nobles were nobles, there was no need to tell one from another. The affluent were not but prey to the poor.

This time, however, Bakura urged the spirits to settle. There were too many guards following the precession. While he did have a certain fondness for risks, there was nothing particularly spectacular that he felt like risking his life for in the moment. He watched them pass lazily from his hiding place for quite some time, until the nobles had disappeared and there were only a few slow guards still in his line of sight. 

A large, white cobra slipped past the guards. Bakura leaned forwards, in awed by the beauty of the snake. The last rays of the sun glistened off its scales, that turned from an ivory white to a soft peach midway down its back. He caught himself smiling slightly and took a moment to thank the gods for allowing him a brief glimpse of such a lovely animal. The restless spirits began to shriek again, chastising him for thinking some pleasant, chastising him for praising the gods, breaking through his moment of serenity, piercing into his mind like a dagger, and then… 

Bakura bit his lip and desperately tried to silence the wailing in his head. They couldn’t let him be happy for even a moment, but he supposed that wasn’t what he needed to be. Serenity didn’t fit him. It made him complacent, they reminded him, prone to fits of weakness. The wailing became more distant as he attempted to look for the snake again. It was now, he realized with a sense of dull horror, under the business end of one of the guards’ spears.

“Hey! Stop!” Bakura yelled, attempting to attract the attention of the guards. They regarded him with little more than amusement as the spear came down again, catching a bit of the writhing snake’s body underneath it. 

Instinct took over for Bakura as he rushed over, wanting to save the snake despite the fact that it was probably more than a bit panicked and likely to bite him. Still, he gambled on his ability to avoid the guards’ weapons and the snake’s jaws for long enough to free it. 

The guards were less than pleased with his interference. As he dove for the snake the spear came up and caught him across the face, from his chin to just below his eye. He gasped and hissed softly as his vision blurred. That was a definite miscalculation. He found himself face to face with a highly venomous cobra, hood flared, ready to strike him at any moment. 

“Good cobra… nice… deadly snake…” his voice wavered a bit. He was literally going to die because of a fucking miscalculation. Oh well. He had to go  _ somehow _ .

One of the nobles seemed to have noticed the absence of his guards, as they were called to rejoin the party and wasted no time in following their masters. Bakura was left alone with the snake. Its hood folded down and he found himself watching the creature curiously as it stared up at him. Slowly it fell back onto its belly, and he rose to his feet, one hand clutching at the fresh wound on his cheek. He feared for his vision as he stumbled back towards his hideout, the spirits shrieking in his ear about how stupid that was. Yes, yes. He attempted to quiet them and briefly considered throwing the ring away for a while. They wailed louder, reminding him that he was fourteen, a man now, a man who should keep a level head and not let himself be distracted by _ beauty _ . 

The snake slithered after him, sand sticking in its wound. As he slumped down against his tiny dwelling, it rested beside him, observing him with its glassy pink eyes. 

“You’re pretty” he informed the snake as he attempted to pinch his new wound closed “don’t bite me, alright?” He winced and hissed through his teeth as he tried to blink. Not good. Everything was hazy and red. He supposed he’d be keeping that eye closed for a while. “You don’t bite me and I don’t murder you for blinding me.” He paused and stared at the snake. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. This isn’t your fault.” Bakura probably sounded just as miserable as he felt. Shutting his good eye, he attempted to lean back and found the space behind him empty and cold. The sand around him shifted out of the way and he found himself falling through a thick, cold expanse of darkness. Both of his eyes snapped open, eliciting another pained yell.

Was this the ring’s doing? It had never done anything of the sort before. There were a few moments in which he truly believed he might have died due to the sensation of pure nothingness, then he felt cold stone underneath him, and pale yellow light began to emanate from some unseen source. Squinting, he attempted to make out his new surroundings. He was in some sort of vast underground cavern, though he couldn’t be sure where the light was from. Its walls were adorned with paintings of cobras and their ilk, small forms all coming together to form a massive mural of a long, twisting, all-encompassing godlike snake. Many times he had come across some sort of ward against the chaotic gods, but never a shrine to one. Letting out a small whimper he shuffled backwards, away from the imposing mural, as it seemed to shift and writhe in place, perhaps through some trick of the light. A great whispering echoed through the cavern, as if between a thousand voices speaking in a thousand tongues. They were female, young, and clear. As each new voice spoke he felt an unseen hand brushing up his body or through his hair.

As the frantic beating of his heart threatened to drown out the distant voices, another cut through the air, deep, male, indescribably ancient and hollow. It spoke in no tongue he knew, but it spoke, and it spoke to  _ him _ . He shivered uncontrollably before falling back against the ground, held down by the same soft hands that he felt on every inch of his body. A woman appeared atop him, her slender body scaled like that of a snake’s, eyes shifting between human and bestial as she stared him down with a strange intensity. Those eyes, that he thought must have contained the secrets of a thousand realms, came closer to his and then shut as she pressed her lips to his wound and murmured something soft and clear, in his tongue. 

When he next woke, he woke atop his little pile of treasures, with a neatly healed scar on his face and a soft stinging in the back of his head. 


	2. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DON'T EAT MEAT LIKE THAT, IT'S UNSAFE,

_ Japan, early 2000s _ __   
__   
Three thousand years passed. 

I can only assume that you know how, and why, and where. Bakura settled. Bakura disappeared into the darkness, and then there was the spirit, and the spirit was full of fury and little else.

He’d met his host, who didn’t even have fury, and ended up as a badly kept secret around a teenaged boy’s neck.

They had been on an island, there was a tournament, and then… there was Ryou, working diligently at the metal of the Millennium Ring, attempting to restore its golden sheen. The polish made his hands sting a little as it stuck around the edges of his fingernails, but he ignored the sensation. He had managed to get  _ most _ of the ring back to a pleasant shine, but one small part still stubbornly held out. Putting a little more polish on the old shirt he was using as a rag, he grumbled softly under his breath. He wouldn't be able to stand it if it were actually scratched. The spirit, oddly enough, made no appearance. Usually it was there over his shoulder, telling him he'd done a poor job or just watching him quietly, but he couldn’t even feel its presence. 

He could feel a growing fear, somewhere deep in his gut, but he tried not to acknowledge it. Even if it was a scratch, something as small as this couldn't have...hurt the spirit. He couldn’t believe that such a thing would be possible. Exorcisms didn’t work, how could a tiny scratch manage to harm an ancient, evil entity? 

His thoughts were cut short by a sharp, searing pain from the wounds his chest as they opened again and he found himself soaking another shirt with blood. He must have put too much force into polishing the ring, and as the pain spread through his upper body he whimpered slightly, then cried out as some of the polish dripped into the wound. Clumsily, he dropped the shirt he was using and stumbled into the bathroom to flush the wound, still clutching desperately at the ring and cursing under his breath. Messiness would likely be the end of him.

He heard the other him, the one inside the ring, finally make its presence known with a short burst of disembodied laughter.  _ "You really are useless on your own." _

"N-no," he stammered, trying not to show his relief. Of course it hadn’t been hurt. He wasn’t sure why he’d allowed himself to think something so foolish.

The spirit purred, soft and low, in that voice that was both his and not his at the same time.  _ "Were you getting worried about me?" _

"Worried...about what you might do to someone else..." He lied. The only thing that kept it from being the truth, however, was his assumption that the spirit couldn’t exactly do much harm without his physical form.

_ "I should give you something better to worry about, then."  _ The spirit snorted. It sounded off. Unusual.

"What do you mean?" he asked, clutching the ring to his chest. It was something he tended to do when he was feeling defensive, even though he knew it was the ring he was defending himself against. 

_ "I could give you another wound to worry about." _

"You wouldn't," he dared. 

The spirit cackled as the ring's spikes drove into Ryou’s already open chest wounds.  _ "What was that, landlord?” _

Ryou gasped in pain, holding the ring to his chest, realizing that he’d become more or less dull to the specific sensation of cold metal digging into the flesh between his ribs. "This is your body, too," he murmured weakly “you can’t just destroy it.”

_ "I know it is. I can make marks on it if I want to." _ The spirit hissed at him from the ring. It seemed to be a dangerous combination of unusually talkative and extraordinarily confrontational. Ryou grunted in pain, pulling the spikes out of his chest and tossing the bloodied ring into the sink.  _ “Be more careful with the ring next time, precious landlord. Don’t let your stupid friends throw it away again.” _

"It was a mistake! I care about the ring as much as you do!” There was a long pause, then, surprisingly, a breathy apology. Ryou found himself caught entirely off-guard. "W-what?”

_ "M’sorry for stabbing you.” _ The spirit growled it sorries. They clearly were in no way sincere, but it was a start. “Do you want me to take over and clean the wounds?”

"Of course," Ryou answered, trying not to sound too pleased. It was almost like winning, for a moment, before he realized he’d given the spirit an excuse to lock him up inside the ring and go challenge Yugi to a duel, or whatever else he would do when in control. 

Surprisingly, however, he was allowed to stay awake for this switch. Ryou found himself curiously watching the other him clean their shared wounds. He didn’t think the spirit had ever regarded their body with this amount of care before, but he’d never actually been able to watch. He hesitated for a moment before managing to find it in himself to ask about the scratch.  _ "You also...know the ring better than I do. There's a part that I can't quite..."  _ He couldn’t quite bring himself to mention the possibility of permanent damage.

"Did you break it?" The spirit set down the bottle of rubbing alcohol and inspected the ring.

_ "No!" _ Ryou shook his head furiously, trying not to tear up.  _ "I would never!" _

The spirit chuckled softly and tossed the ring aside again, then tugged off their shirt off to inspect the new chest wounds. "Don't worry about it."

Ryou opened his mouth, then closed it again in stunned silence. There was no way that he cared for the ring more than the spirit did. The hateful, evil item that housed that hateful, evil thing was his prized possession. It made him feel safe, even though it was the thing most likely to endanger his life. The ring was his, as was the spirit within it, and the thought of either one having been damaged made the bile start to rise in the back of his throat. Nobody else had the right to touch either one.

Oh, and it was it was a priceless ancient artifact too.

The spirit made quick work of bandaging their chest wounds, stopping briefly to inspect how well the new ones lined up with the past scars. He flicked his fingertips across one set of particularly off-center scars and wondered if he should perhaps stop doing that stabbing thing so often. Ryou watched the spirit examine his scars, an odd stirring somewhere inside of him as he sees that one set of off-center marks. Those were the oldest ones, ones that had grown and shifted with his body as he’d aged. They were a mark of his devotion to his treasures, and he wore them proudly.

"Are you staring” asked the spirit, without as much as a glance in Ryou’s direction.

_ "N-no, I just...haven't often had the chance to watch you as..."  _ As what? As me? Ryou shook his head. It was all too strange for him.

"I wasn't aware that you had voyeuristic tendencies."

_ "V-voyeuristic? It's my body!" _

"Isn't it different when I'm in it, though?" The spirit turned to look at Ryou, and he couldn’t help but admit it was true, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly how or why. Maybe that extra bit of confidence (or cockiness) showed in the face, somehow. The spirit finished treating their wounds then fetched them a clean shirt, putting the ring back in place around their neck as it did.

_ “Alright, you’re done, now give me my body back.” _

The spirit seemed pensive for a moment before shaking its head. I'm going to eat. You can have your body back later."

_ "W-what? But you said you were just going to...!"  _ Ryou attempted to forcibly take his body back, but, without any real experience in that area, he just ended up straining himself nonspecifically.

"I lied." Bakura headed for the kitchen, swung open the fridge, and dug through it for some kind of meat. “Think of this as my fee for leaving you out.”

Ryou, unsatisfied with that answer, continued to try to find the magic meditative switch that would put him back in control of his body. He was succeeding at not panicking, but he needed to be in control of himself immediately or he knew panic would be hot on his heels. He huffed and fumed, making little nondescript sounds of ghostly anger.

"Getting a bit worked up, aren't we now?" The spirit looked over its shoulder at him and smirked, showing the slightest bit of teeth.

_ “I-I don't know what you mean." _

"I let you stay awake, didn't I? Why are you so worked up about this?"

_ "I'm not worked up! You're worked up!" _ Seeing the spirit in his body really was overwhelmingly odd and uncomfortable. It was as if he were forced to watch someone else wear his skin.

"Hmph." The spirit smirked at him and pulled a chunk of meat out of the back of their refrigerator fridge. "Shall I just eat it raw and let you deal with the consequences?"

_ "You wouldn't!" _

The spirit stared right into his partially see-through eyes and then dragged their tongue over the lump of raw meat. "Delicious."

Ryou shuddered and squealed.  _ "Brush my teeth, brush my teeth, brush my teeeeth!" _

The spirit cackled and grabbed a pan, throwing the meat onto it. It definitely cooked like someone who wasn’t afraid to die from food poisoning.

_ "You're going to get us sick!" _

"Then I'll take over and you can bitch at me from the spirit realm. Sound good?"

_ “No!" _ That did not sound good. It was, in fact, the opposite of good, in fact. Ryou wondered if the spirit planned on getting over this ‘talkative’ phase anytime soon.

"It's a plan, then." It ate right out of the pan, with its hands.

Ryou attempted beating on the spirit with his fists, not really expecting it to work, but out of other options. His non-corporeal hands passed through their body pathetically and the sheer amount of nothing happening made the spirit laugh a bit, then choke on the meat. It wheezed for a moment then spat out the piece it had choked on and just kept eating.

Choking to death would be just as bad as dying of food poisoning, mused Ryou, dropping his hands to his sides.  _ "T-this isn't fair!" _

"Eating is difficult" stated the spirit, still attempting to stuff its face with delicious meat.

_ "I'm good at it! Let me finish the food, and then you can do other things!"  _ Anything was preferable to watching an ancient spirit choke to death in his body.

“What would be the point of that? I want to taste things." The spirit managed to get down the rest of the meat, then spent some time meticulously licking its fingers clean.

Ryou whimpered in frustration and tried to throw himself down into a chair. It worked, not in the same way that a throwing down a human body would, but knowing the position of the chair allowed him to sit in a semi-convincing manner. He crossed his arms and gave the spirit the best angry glare he could muster as it tossed the dirty pan into the sink with a loud clatter, probably managing to break several things and dent everything else at once.

"So, landlord, what did you get up to while I was gone?"

_ "I..."  _ He hesitated. He had gone crazy looking for the ring, hadn't been able to sleep some nights, but he didn’t want to give the spirit the satisfaction of knowing how important it was to him.  _ "...I caught up on my reading." _

"Didn't bother getting a girlfriend or anything, huh?"

Relationships were too messy for Ryou. People wanted too much space, or not enough. He’d never really been able to understand the point.  _ "That kind of thing doesn't matter to me." _ Besides, he was possessed by a raw meat licking asshole. It would probably be hard to find someone to put up with that.

"What kind of teenage boy doesn't think about that kind of thing? You're pathetic."

_ "At least I'm not pining after a long-dead random guy who doesn't even remember me." _

“What do you mean?” 

_ “What do you think I mean?” _

The spirit’s eyes turned dark as he realized just what Ryou was implying, and his voice lowered from a teasing tone into a harsh growl. "Don't even fucking joke.”

_ “If your little crush gets us killed, it’ll be your fault.”  _ The words had slipped out before Ryou could think about them and how much damage they could do. It bothered him, though. It bothered him more than he was comfortable with. That the spirit obsessed so much over Yugi’s spirit, and he, its owner, hardly got to speak to it unless it was screeching at him. It was his ring, not Yugi’s. Part of him was curious as to what the spirit would do if he pushed it a bit further, the stupid, thrill-seeking part of him that was probably the only tiny piece the two shared. It might actually kill him, he realized, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.   _ "Mm. And I'm pathetic. Look who I’m talking to." _ He waved his hand, heart pounding wildly in his ears, unsure of what exactly he was trying to accomplish.

And then the world went spinning, and he was out.


	3. Because I Can

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about this chapter, I guess it's a thing. Warning: Blood, abuse.

Ryou woke up in his own body, feeling for a moment as if he'd won the exchange, thinking the spirit had left him to sulk. It didn’t take long for him to realize, however, that he was on his back on the bathroom floor and his wounds were open again. Not just open from movement, but torn open with a level of malevolence that made him want to shudder. The back of his head hurt and his body felt hot and heavy. He let out a low moan and tried to move, finding that he could taste nothing but the flavor of poorly cooked meat and vomit lingering in his mouth. A few things in the room were smashed and the shower curtain was torn down completely. It lay in a sad little heap across his oddly non-responsive legs. 

He whimpered pathetically, trying desperately to get his limbs to respond. Paralysis had always been one of his greatest fears; to not even be able to control his own movements was, in his opinion, a fate worse than death. After a few attempts to pull himself up, he let out a soft cry and tried to blink away his tears.

_ "Up you go" _ muttered the spirit cheerfully, and his body jerked upwards.

Ryou gasped in sudden pain as the movement tugged at his wounds. "H-how are you...?" It seemed that he was sharing his body with the spirit, now.  _ He _ clearly wasn’t in control of it.

_ "Let's play a game." _ One of the mirrors that the spirit tore down was now propped up against the wall just out of his reach. He could see himself in it clearly, though he didn’t want to make eye contact with the scraggly, pathetic boy in the mirror. 

"G-game?" he asked groggily. Everything hurt.

_ "I'm going to show you how pathetic you are. Watch closely." _

Ryou watched. There wasn’t much else he could do. His shirt came off first, giving him a good view of the wounds and the slightly bloodstained millennium ring. He winced at the sight of the fresh wounds on his bony chest, then his body moved again as his pants came off, leaving him in nothing but a pair of boxers that clung too closely to his thin, sweaty body.

"W-what are you doing?" he asked, trying to play dumb. A frenzied heartbeat pounded in his ears, but he couldn’t be sure if it was his or the spirit’s.

_ "I've been stuck in your pathetic body for ten years. If you won't respect me, then I won't bother knocking you out every time I want to fuck around." _

"O-oh?" Ryou’s heart skipped a beat, assuring him that he was, in fact, the one in charge of it. So, he could control his circulatory system and mouth. It was a start, and thinking about that made him just a bit less uncomfortable.Something turned over in his stomach, and he realized that it wasn’t exactly  _ his  _ stomach. The space between himself and the spirit was as closed as it could possibly be, and even though Ryou didn’t have agency over his own body he could feel it, and  _ it _ was… sick. Nauseous. Frightened?

_ “You shouldn’t taunt me, landlord. You should know better than to poke a sleeping bear.”  _

“You’re not a bear. You’re barely a mouse without me.” That’s what it was. Frightened. That stomach-feel was an all too familiar one. The spirit scared Ryou whenever it could, and now he couldn’t resist taking some measure of deviant glee from the way he could feel its fear. “If I throw you away, you’re nothing.”

It fell silent. Ryou tried again to move his arms, but he encountered the same feeling of nonexistence as he had before. Anchored in place, he was forced to stare himself down in the bathroom mirror. 

He felt bold. 

He didn’t look the part.

With a soft sigh he attempted to lean forwards for a better look at his wounds, and to his surprise he found himself moving forwards all too quickly. His forehead connected with the mirror and he shrieked as the glass shattered around him. It wasn’t enough of a force to send the glass shards flying, but a few embedded themselves in his forehead anyways. Ryou hissed and tried to pick out the shards before remembering that he couldn’t move his arms, and that was what finally brought tears to his eyes.

_ “Apologize and I’ll stop.” _

“No” Ryou gasped between sobs, feeling the muscles in his jaw tense up as he desperately tried to compose himself “I hope you’re feeling this too. You deserve it.”

_ “I don’t want to hurt you an-” _

“It doesn’t matter what you want. You’re not a person. You’re a shitty voice in my head who tells me what to do and I know you won’t kill me because you’re afraid of losing your host body. I can feel it. You’re afraid, because you’re w-” Ryou’s head came down hard on the edge of the sink and he bit his lip to avoid biting his tongue. It hurt. Some of the glass shards were presumably lost under his skin, now.

Ryou bit through his lip.

_ “I’m afraid?” _

“Yes, and you don’t scare me anymore.”

_ “I might not” _ it admitted. Ryou had never really stood up to it before, but then again, it had never really hurt him like this while he was awake before.  _ “I know what you are afraid of, though. I can feel it when I take control of your body. Aren’t you worried about what your friends will think when you show up to school looking like you got hit by a car?” _

“No” Ryou mumbled bitterly. It wasn’t that he thought they wouldn’t worry about him. They always did. He just didn’t exactly plan on going to school until his wounds stopped showing.

_ “I’m sure your little fan club will be all over you, their precious prince was hurt by a big bad demon” _ the spirit taunted him as a bit of hot blood trickled down and welled up in his eye. Ryou blinked it away. He didn’t exactly need to be blind as well.  _ “Maybe your father will even call for once.”  _ Ryou didn’t respond. There was no more resistance, and the spirit knew it had gone too far with that one. 

“All you can do is hurt me. It’s just my body, I don’t care what you do to it. You’ve already made me ugly.” Ryou dropped to the floor in an awkward slump as he regained control of his body, but the spirit didn’t retreat, not completely. He could still feel it there, in the pit of his stomach and his oddly dead left hand. It was sick and afraid. Ryou’s body was a mess, possibly more so than he'd ever seen it before, his torso caked in blood and his hair matted and stuck to it in patches. More than one shower would be needed to undo the damage the spirit had caused. Folding his arms across his chest, Ryou found he couldn’t meet his own eyes in the mirror. He was far past crying, but he half wished he wasn’t.

_ “I’m not afraid of you throwing me away. You won’t.”  _ The spirit sounded rather unsure of itself, but it wasn’t wrong. If it belonged to anyone other than Ryou, it would probably have been long abandoned by now, but that wasn’t the case.

“Why did you do it?” 

_ “Because I can.” _

“You didn’t have to.” The spirit stayed quiet, but Ryou could feel its nausea still radiating out from inside the ring.

His left hand reached out to pluck out a piece of glass first. Ryou’s forehead went numb, as if the pain were worlds away, and the fingers shook. His right hand followed suit as the two people in that one cursed body slowly picked the bits of broken mirror out of their forehead.

_ "You look good like this." _

“Don’t let that be your reason to do it again. Don’t  _ ever _ do this again.”

_ “Just don’t give me a reason to do it again” _

“Is that what you think passes for a sorry?” Another sigh escaped Ryou’s lips as he flicked a piece of glass into the sink. “You know, a cry for help doesn’t generally actually involve actually making someone cry.”

_ “And hamsters are not what ham is made of. I remember you telling me that in great detail, landlord. Point being?” _ A few more pieces of glass clattered against the cold porcelain of the sink. 

“I missed you, spirit” Ryou said lamely, plucking out the last bit of glass. He figured that the spirit was currently shouldering the brunt of the physical pain at the moment, and he wasn't really unused to the emotional bit, so there didn’t really seem to be any reason not to tell the truth. “Even if you are the most utterly deplorable thing to ever exist” he added, for good measure. Couldn’t exactly have the thing thinking he liked it, now could he?

_ “Well, I try. Glad my efforts aren’t going unnoticed.” _

“Why are you like this all of a sudden?”

_ “Well, I-” _ it really didn’t think there was a way to explain away its behavior. It lost its temper. It hurt the host. That was inexcusable.  _ “I don’t have an excuse.” _

“No, not” Ryou waved his hand at the broken mirror “not that. I can fill in the blanks there. Why are you talking to me?”

_ “Ah, well, that…” _ There wasn’t really a reason. Ryou was just… there, and it was alone, and he…  _ “I’ll stop.” _

“If you promise not to introduce my forehead to any more hard surfaces, I wouldn’t mind having you present more often.” 

_ “You are being incredibly diplomatic for someone who I just attempted to murder.”  _ The spirit tried to remember the number for emergency services. A concussion was probably the cause of Ryou’s sudden calm, and the fact that it couldn’t identify any actual damage in Ryou’s head made it all the more terrifying. Maybe he’d hit Ryou so hard that something had come loose.

“If you throw one more whiny baby fit in my body, I will melt the ring down and pawn it off for trading cards.” Flipping up the fringe of his now red tipped hair, Ryou attempted to clean up the wound with what could only be described as egregious amounts of rubbing alcohol. Some soaked into his hair, leaving the soft smell of clean death on everything. 

_ “Do you need that much rubbing alcohol?” _

“I haven’t cleaned that mirror since I moved in, I don’t know what could be on it.” Grabbing his oversized roll of gauze, Ryou bandaged his forehead to the best of his abilities. “Smells like a morgue in here.”

_ “I wonder why.” _

“We’re going to need more rubbing alcohol.”

_ “Oh gee, I wonder why.” _

“We can only assume that everything is your fault.”

_ “Well” _ the spirit searched for a way in which that could possibly not be true  _ “you’re not wrong.” _

“Anyways, you’d better start thinking about what you need to buy the next time you’re in my body.”

The spirit sat in stunned silence for a moment _ “... what?” _

It was with a begrudging sense of self loathing that the evil spirit in Bakura Ryou’s body settled in to make a shopping list. 


	4. Domesticated Ghostie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that I just checked out of doing anything for a while there, uhhhh... but this will be updating once every two days consistently until it's finished now!

Ryou turned the ‘grocery list’ over in his hands. It was covered in vaguely food-shaped scribbles. “Spirit, what is this?”

_ “Grocery list. You asked for a grocery list.” _

“That’s not what I…” Ryou sighed and pocketed the useless slip of paper. Oh well. At the very least, it had put in some tiny amount of effort. 

_ "Buy more meat." _

"Not right now..." He gestured to his yet to fully scab over forehead wound. "I'm in no state to go outside."

_ "I don't mean now. Just in general. You're a man, aren't you? Eat like one." _

"I eat very well, thank you very much! Too much red meat is bad for you--I'm trying to keep an eye on my health!"

_ "What the fuck does that even mean? Meat is good." _

"It can cause heart disease."

The spirit blinked at him. It had never thought about that. Meat was good!  _ "Okay. That sounds fake, but okay." _

"That's also why it's important to cook it evenly and slowly--the more charred the meat is, the higher the risk of cancer."

_ "Wouldn't that make it better to eat raw?" _

"Then there are parasites and diseases, and so many other things that can go wrong."

_ "You make things so difficult." _

"Life is difficult. That's why you have to be on top of it at all times." As if Ryou knew what that meant. He hadn’t exactly started on… well… any of this year’s homework yet.

The spirit made a poor, misplaced attempted to get Ryou off of the topic.  _ "I'd rather be on top of you at all times, landlord.” _

Ryou’s breath caught in his throat. After moment, he decided to intentionally misunderstand the comment. "No, it's my body! You can't be in control of it all the time!"

_ "Just buy more meat." _

Ryou stamped his foot, trying not to wince too visibly at the pain. "My body, my rules!"

_ "You are a child." _

"I'm a child? You're the one basically begging for sweets!"

_ "You should pick up some sweets, too. Dates are good." _

"I don't think that you deserve a date."

_ “Are you teasing me?" _

Ryou looked at its hair critically. "I don't think you need any more teasing. It’s already sort of..." He moved his hands around, trying to mimic the spirit’s spiky fluff. “Huge.”

_ "You really did miss me” _ it realized, with a sloppy half-smirk,  _ “you’re so cute.” _

Ryou’s face reddened. "I'm not-” he threw himself down onto the couch with a huff, trying to hide the fact that his ears were beet red “you’re just… ugh.”

The spirit shut its eyes and smirked, taking in how incredibly good it felt to be able to rile up his host so easily.  _ "Buy me dates, landlord." _

"No!"

_ "I will steal your body and go grocery shopping." _

"I might not be able to stop you, but I don't have to be complicit in your schemes!"

The spirit briefly considered  _ actually  _ stealing Ryou’s body and using real money to buy something just for the hell of it, then realized he never actually learned how the plastic rectangles work as money.  _ "You should be thankful that I'm letting you speak to me at all." _

"Oh, I am thankful, oh wise and noble ph--spirit." He wondered if the spirit would catch him and beat him up again for that comment, but he couldn’t keep the words in his mouth--some part of him was still compelled to taunt the spirit, even though he was now fully aware what could come from that. Thankfully, the spirit seemed to be only half paying attention as Ryou congratulated himself internally on finding something that could consistently piss it off. "I'm little too weak for...much of anything right now," he admitted sadly. Physical pain wasn’t something he was used to, and it always effectively stopped him from doing even the most simple things. 

_ "Then let me take over." _

He hesitated, then shook his head. "No, you'd just push my body harder. It needs to rest..."

_ "Well don't whine, you can't say I didn't offer."  _

"Offer? Yes, trying to make me give up my body is a lovely offer, thank you spirit."

_ "I'm not trying to make you do anything but me." _

"Y-you mean...you want me to..." Ryou turned red again and quickly crossed one leg over the other. 

_ "Don't overthink things." _ It wasn’t actually expecting its host to pick up on that one. Ryou looked away from the spirit awkwardly, then resumed trying to obsessively get that damned final dull spot out of the ring.  _ "Let me do it if you're going to obsess over it. Remember how you opened up your wounds? Or is your memory really that shitty?" _

"No… no, you're right. It… can wait." It was agonizing to see the ring scuffed, but Ryou let it be.

_ "So your brain isn't the size of a peanut. Good to know." _

"You know, when you're in this body, that's the brain that you use, too."

_ "You're just a vessel, don't get too full of yourself." _

"What, afraid there won't be room left for you?"

_ "Oh please, you'll clearly never get sick of having me inside of you." _

Ryou couldn’t disagree with that. "...you're mine."

The spirit narrowed its eyes at its unbearably cocky little fluff of a landlord.  _ "I'm not a slave." _

"You've made that much clear," he said, wincing. "I do not claim to be master of you," not yet, at least, "but you are mine."

_ "You are mine, too. Don't forget that." _

Ryou swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat. That felt wrong, somehow, but "... right." 

_ "Good boy." _ The spirit attempted not to think about how aggravating it would be to have been locked in the ring alone for another thousand years, how thankful it was that Ryou had picked the ring back up instead of letting it be melted down for a few coins, how surprised and almost proud it was that Ryou still seemed keen on talking to it after what it had done. No, thinking those things would mean it was… respecting Ryou, or something stupid like that.

"I think...I need to rest," murmured Ryou, getting to his wobbly feet and heading towards the bed, then crawling into bed and curling up protectively around the ring, calmed by the way it absorbed his body heat and pressed warmly against his chest while he rested. Its spirit, though, well... he’d have to figure out a way to handle its sudden bout of talkativeness. 

A yawn escaped his lips. Later. He'd figure it out later.

The spirit considered actually following through on its threat and borrowing his body to get food, but with Ryou’s condition there was a chance of him actually breaking it, and that would be hard to deal with. Ryou twitched and whimpered in his sleep, clutching at the ring like a safety blanket. Even though it felt odd beyond reason, the spirit found itself watching Ryou sleep, half expecting to be told that watching over someone like this was some sort of crime. Stealing time, or something. It fumbled for the blanket to tuck Ryou in before remembering that it was non-corporeal and not really of much use.

_“Goodnight, landlord.”_


	5. What We Need

After a while, but certainly not long enough to be healthy, Ryou groaned and stretched. “Everything hurts," he mumbled groggily, finding himself questioning once again why the hell the spirit would want to hurt him so much.

_ "Too bad" _ answered the spirit, who had not been aware that he’d been watching over Ryou all night until Ryou had to go and wake up. He was cuter while asleep, it decided. Ignoring the spirit, Ryou crawled out of bed and headed into the bathroom for an actual proper shower. Had to get all that dried blood and self loathing off somehow. 

"Grocery shopping, right?"

_ "Yes." _

"Right..." He stripped down and got into the water, the ring still firmly around his neck. It probably wasn’t the best for the metal, but this was one action that he could attribute to comfort rather than practicality. 

_ "You wear that to shower?" _

“I don't like taking it off..." He clutched at it unconsciously, covering it in bubbly soap, then attempting to ignore the half-presence in his bathroom as he finished showering, grumbling slightly as he scrubbed himself, wincing whenever he got soap in a wound.

The spirit smirked slightly. Why was watching Ryou suffer so much fun? Maybe it  _ was _ just an absolutely irredeemably terrible being. 

After he'd cleaned himself up as best as he could, Ryou dried himself off, made a mental note to soak that towel later to get the blood out of it, got dressed, then pawed through the fridge in an attempt to figure out exactly what he needed from the store.

The spirit found itself fidgeting awkwardly. It had never been outside of the ring for so long without just knocking Ryou out, and it took a bit of time to reflect on just how uncomfortable it felt to literally be haunting someone.

"Something the matter?" Ryou asked as he finished his list. The spirit wasn’t normally this… complacent. 

_ "Dates. Red meat." _

"Dates," he wrote down.

The spirit shrugged. One out of two wasn't bad. He hadn't had dates in so long that he hardly remembered what they tasted like, anyways, so it would be an adventure. 

A domestic adventure.

With a sigh, Ryou pocketed his keys and headed to the grocery store, spirit quietly stored inside of the ring to avoid making Ryou look like a boy who talks to people who aren’t there. There were only ever two reasons for it to be alert when Ryou was out; it was either waiting to take over for a duel or making sure its adorable, defenseless looking little host didn't get robbed. Fortunately, Ryou managed to make it to the supermarket without making eye contact with anyone or accidentally uttering a pun that would, as far as he could tell, magically summon one of the various gimmick-themed ranked players that prowled the streets of Domino City.

The spirit couldn’t resist getting out of the ring to look around the supermarket. It had been in one a few times, at night, but it was still so odd to see how the food was presented. Everything was packaged. It couldn’t imagine why. Ryou, however, found that as soon as he tried to get something not on his regular list he was effectively lost in the grocery store. The spirit steered him into the proper aisles as best it could, sticking close to his back the entire time. Too many people were around, and it was… uncomfortable, to say the least. Neither of them really wanted to be out and on display in a busy supermarket at fuck knows when in the morning, but at least Ryou found himself thanking the stars for the existence of credit cards and self checkouts. They cut at least one whole person from the total number he had to interact with.

Even with all of his efforts, trouble found Ryou on the way home. He found himself in front of a pair of older boys, who blocked his path. He tried to turn and go around them, but one of them grabbed his shoulder. Judging by the normality of their hairstyles, it was fair to assume that they probably just wanted money and not a duel, which was for the best really as Ryou had never been all that good at Duel Monsters. 

“You in a hurry, kid?" 

Ryou tried to think quickly and be brave. Unfortunately, neither of those things came naturally to him. "Food will spoil," he squeaked, shaking slightly. 

"You have some nice stuff in there. Think you could spare some money for us?" 

"S-spent it all..." There was just something much more frightening about real people with real actual bodies. 

"Aw come on, I bet you have something left." The grip on his shoulder tightened and he quietly wondered whether he’d ever manage to go a day without something shitty happening.

“Hey, spirit” he whimpered meekly. Better to leave this sort of situation to the spirit, if it felt up to helping him. As soon as he acknowledged the spirit, he was thrown into the ring. Not knocked out this time, just stuck inside the dirty little soul room that he often was when the spirit decided it needed his body. The spirit probably either forgot to let him out, or was fucking with him, because he found himself completely confined to the tiny room. He tried to breathe, to keep himself calm, knowing that he need not panic. At the very least he was aware this time. Previously, the spirit would just knock him out. Being aware and trapped was… still more in control than not being aware at all.

Meanwhile, the spirit was gathering the grocery bags back up and grinning to himself. His pockets were now full of the thieves' money and watches. For him, at least, it was a good day. "Hey, did you see that l-" he looked around then realized he accidentally threw Ryou into the ring. Fuck. He did such a good job, too. He swore under his breath then let Ryou out.

Ryou cautiously scanned their surroundings, hoping that the spirit didn't draw too much attention, then stared down at his own translucent palms. This again. 

"I was cool, right?" The spirit grinned, carrying the bags as if they were trophies.

_ "...I wouldn't know." _ He really, really hoped this wouldn’t come back to bite them in the ass, but at the same time he had to assume it always would. Once they reached their apartment, the spirit set the grocery bags down and fumbled around in their pockets for the keys.  _ “Other side” _ prompted Ryou. It fished out the keys and let them in, making sure to lock the door behind them. 

Ryou breathed a sigh of relief. Well, not breathed, not exactly, then attempted to slump down on the couch without passing through it. One grocery trip had managed to exhaust him enough that he didn’t feel keen on seeing sunlight for another year. The spirit dug through the bags for the dates. As he did, his hand touched something cold and he hissed like an insulted cat.

_ "What's the matter?" _ Ryou noted how blind he felt without physical sensation.

"Cold."

_ "What is?" _ He tried to peer into the bag

"This trash." The spirit pulled out a carton of ice cream. Ah yes, the impulse buy. Ryou eyed it, already thinking of how he was going to end up hating himself for finishing the whole thing in one sitting. 

_ "Ah… well, give me the body back and I'll put everything away, then." _

"I can put it away." The spirit grumbled and started putting things away, cold things first. He really didn’t seem to like it when they touched him. "I just don't like cold."

_ "...cold, huh?" _ Ryou made a mental note to use the thermostat to his advantage in maintaining control of the body.

As soon as the spirit found the the dates it sat down to eat them. Well, it didn't really sit, rather it sprawled out across the entire couch, taking up as much space as physically possible.

_ "That can't be comfortable." _

"It feels great." The spirit unwrapped the dates and sniffed them as if they might be poisonous, then stuffed one into its mouth. Pleasant. Nostalgic. It hurt a bit. 

_ "You're going to give us back problems." _

"Come here."

_ "I am here. Where else would I be?" _

"No, come here." The spirit made some space on the couch. Ryou floated over and made a point of sitting through part of the spirit’s leg. It smirked. "I'm surprised that you aren't keeping your distance from me."

_ "I assume that I can only travel so far from the ring. Besides, no matter what I do, my body is always going to be occupying the same space as you." _

"I meant I'm surprised you're still even speaking to me after the other day."

_ "Not speaking to you wouldn't somehow take away your capacity to do it again." _

"It might make me want to a bit less." Or more. It wasn’t really sure. Ryou was definitely aggravating, but guilt was also apparently a thing it was capable of now. How awful.

_ "I might as well know what you're doing with my body." _

The spirit reached out and passed a hand through Ryou's cheek, and Ryou shied away in confusion. "Does it really make a difference?"

_ "I'd rather know than not know." _ It was closer to being in control of the situation. Ryou glanced at the hand that currently stuck through his ghostly fluff of hair and tilted his head a bit. This was, oddly, the closest thing to actual physical contact that he’d had to deal with in a while.

“Does it disgust you to see me in your body?"

Ryou didn’t know how to answer the question, and that bothered him.  _ "It's my body," _ he said simply.

"And I’m your spirit. If you asked me to, I would do anything."

_ "Why would I ask you to do anything for me?" _ Ryou tried to bat away the spirit’s hand. It was definitely getting too cocky.

"Because then you'd be in charge, wouldn't you?"

Ryou hesitated. Something about that didn’t seem quite right.  _ "That assumes that I want you to do anything for me..." _

"I know you do."

_ “No, you don't! You don’t know anything about me, and you only show yourself when you want to fuck with me.” _

“Ryou, I’m wounded. Really. It pains me to see you all alone. I’d hoped that you would change without me, but it seems you’re the same as ever. You and I will just have to make the best of what’s here.”

_ “See, like that. You’re fucking with me.”  _ Ryou glared right through the spirit in his body. It was manipulative and cruel, and he wasn’t about to be taken in by it. Not like this.

“No, but I would really like to be fucking with you right now, it whatever capacity you’d most prefer.” The spirit’s fingers would have been on Ryou’s neck now, if he were corporeal. Even though he preferred to play dumb most of the time, he couldn’t exactly pretend to ignore what the spirit wanted from him for much longer. Ryou shifted a bit. He probably didn’t want to indulge the spirit any more than he wanted to start on the mountain of overdue homework leering menacingly at him from his computer table, but there was something overly enticing about being able to control it with little more than physical attraction. 

_ "Why are you so insistent about this, and why now? I’ve always been here. I haven’t changed, and now you want to touch me?" _ Ryou adjusted the bandage on his forehead.  _ “Are you actually disgusting enough to only be attracted to me because I’m hurt?” _

“Well…” because it forgot how cold it was to be alone. Because it wanted some kind of affirmation, any kind at all, but the spirit wasn’t about to readily admit that, so it just shrugged.

_ "Then why don't you just...? Yourself, I mean?"  _ It shrugged again, not knowing how to put its sudden and intense need to touch Ryou into words that didn’t sound pathetic. Ryou considered giving in, but the taste of betrayal was still fresh on his tongue and he wasn’t exactly waiting to lose control of his body to the spirit again.

"Not going to whine at me about using your body?"

_ "You've clearly done it before, and, if I tell you not to, you'll probably just do it when I'm asleep." _ Ryou shrugged, inwardly irritated at the extent to which the spirit could do whatever it wanted to.

"I don't feel like it."

_ "You just said you wanted to do something. Aren’t you, um..." _ Ryou mumbled some slang for sexual arousal that made his tongue feel dirty. 

"Oh, I am."

_ "But you don't feel like..." _ He didn’t know what to call it.  _ "...pleasuring yourself?" _

"Well, I haven't killed anyone today, so not particularly, no."

Ryou fell back in shock.  _ "Wh-what...?" _

"Blood gets me going, okay?"

_ "I...see..." _ He didn’t see, not really. But he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. The evil spirit in his body killing people with his hands was just about the last thing he wanted to think about.

“Anyway." Purred the spirit, shutting its eyes. "What about you?"

"W-what about me?"

“What turns you on, aside from always chewing the erasers off your pencils?"

_ "I-I don't...that isn't something that I'm..." _ Well, that was it. He’d completely lost control of the situation. 

"You seemed to be pining over me quite badly yesterday."

_ "I was just surprised! You’ve never gone for that long!" _

"Alright, then, I will make a point of not disappearing again."

_ "As long as we're clear on that."  _ He recognized that he lost that exchange as well, but at least he hadn’t openly admitted that he didn’t want the spirit to go.

“So, landlord, how about a kiss?"

_ “What?!” _ Ryou turned beet red. He’d never been kissed before, and the spirit knew that. It was just teasing. It had to be teasing.  _ “Why would you… ask for something like that?” _

“Why wouldn’t I? Isn’t that a common thing to ask from someone you find attractive?”

_ “I wouldn’t know.” _ Ryou was too confused by the situation to be angry over it. 

“That’s right, you wouldn’t know. Even without me around, those gaps between you and the others didn’t lessen, did they?”

_ “What do you know about that?” _ Ryou’s voice wavered slightly. He knew full well what the spirit meant. Even when it wasn’t around, he still distanced himself from his classmates and peers, so… it couldn’t be the only thing to blame for his isolation. 

“You’re eighteen years old, you’ve never gone on a date, never slept anywhere but your own tiny apartment, and you’ve certainly never been kissed. What’s the harm in my offering to solve that problem for you?”

_ “It’s not a… problem. Not to me” _ Ryou muttered lamely, sinking through the couch in a literal sense  _ “besides, even if I wanted to, I can’t touch you. I can’t kiss you. The only body you have is mine.” _

“You’re correct. So why not humor me, then?”

_ “Alright…” _

The spirit, the Bakura who both was and wasn't him, shifted forwards until it sat inches away from his face. "Stick out your tongue."

_ "M-my what?" _

"Stick out your tongue" it repeated.

_ "You aren't in control of me. You don't own me, you can’t just tell me to do things whenever you like." _

"Will you do it if I ask you nicely?" He hesitated, then nodded. That still acknowledged his own autonomy, so it was at least a bit more acceptable. "Could you stick out your tongue, landlord?"

Ryou responded quickly, almost too quickly. He leaned forwards slightly and opened his mouth a bit, eyes half lidded. The spirit took a moment to admire him then closed the gap between them and planted an airy kiss on his non-corporeal lips. There wasn’t much of a physical feeling, but for some odd reason it left Ryou’s lips tingling and his heart thumping in his ears. 

“How was that?”

Ryou struggled to find the right words.  _ “Awkward”  _ he mumbled softly. 

“Awkward?”

_ “Intimate…” _ Ryou breathed, absent-mindedly letting his fingers brush against his lips. It wasn’t exactly what he’d imagined a kiss would feel like. Much less warm, much less wet. 

Neither of those were things he particularly liked, though, so he wasn’t exactly mourning their loss. 

“Do you want to try it again, then?”

_ “No” _ snapped Ryou, then, after a moment  _ “not tonight.” _

 


	6. You’re Just as Bad as Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically only half of the chapter, shortened for consistency's sake. Warnings: blood, abuse.

Ryou’s request for sleep was well heeded. The spirit was silent and docile for the rest of the night. Ryou’s lips, however, stubbornly refused to stop tingling. The kiss had been nothing, less than nothing even, but even his fingertips brushing against them made him squirm with confusion at the odd new sensations his body was producing. Something in him started to fear the spirit on some level, even though he thought he’d thoroughly dispelled those feelings a long time ago. It had done that much without even touching him, it had clouded his mind just by  _ pretending _ to touch his lips. That seemed rather unfair to Ryou. 

Still he had a brief break from having to confront those confusing feelings, until partway through a rerun of his favorite show, around six in the afternoon to be exact. When the spirit drifted out of the ring, even if it didn’t choose to show itself, he could always feel its activity in a way he couldn’t even begin to describe. It was as if he just knew when something different was around. Usually, the spirit did little to get in his way, but of course now as soon as it made its appearance it was back at his side, grinning mischievously. 

“Don’t give me that look” Ryou snapped “it makes you look like you want to eat me.”

“I do, landlord. You look absolutely delicious today.”

“Ugh.” Ryou’s nose wrinkled at the thought. Cannibalism wasn’t exactly a favorite topic of his. He loved horror movies, sure, but the thought of confronting actual real life gore always made him cringe a little bit. “You’re certainly riled up today.”

_ “Oh, now, am I the only one still buzzing from yesterday’s events?” _

“Yes.” The boy wasn’t about to mention that even the spirit’s words made those confusing feelings show themselves once again. 

_ “Well then, you don’t want to try again?”  _ If the spirit were corporeal, it would currently have Ryou up against a wall. As is was, Ryou just stepped through it and sat back down on the couch.

“Nah.”

_ “You’re not even going to entertain the idea?” _

“Nope.”

_ “Come on, landlord. Don’t play dumb. I’m your other half, you can pretend to be uninterested all you like but I am just as aware of your urges as you are.”  _ The spirit’s thin, non-corporeal fingers traced a line down Ryou’s pale neck.

“Don’t call yourself that. You aren’t my other half, you’re practically a lousy pet.” Ryou’s neck started to tingle in the same strange manner his lips had as the spirit moved in to follow its fingers with airy kisses. It wasn’t listening to him. He fought the urge to back away, knowing that he couldn’t back down, he couldn’t show weakness. The spirit was acting like a wild animal, and he needed to show dominance to tame a beast, so...

_ “Don't you want to play with your pet?"  _ Ryou chewed on his lip thoughtfully. He didn’t hate the idea, but admitting that would be almost as offensive as admitting that the spirit was right, so he just kept quiet.  _ "You want to calm me down, don't you?" _

"No, I want you to be calm. I don't need to be the one to bring that about.” Ryou’s eyes narrowed. The spirit had caught on to his need for control and was now trying to use his attempts to establish it as some sort of… game. 

_ "You're really the only one concerned about how calm I am, so I would say that it is your responsibility to keep me that way.” _

"You're the one who wants to inhabit my body, you should at least try to be nice to me.”

_ "Let's make a deal. You play with me on my terms for a bit, I'll stay out of your way for a while." _

"Fine. Deal." Ryou took the bait all too eagerly, knowing full well that the spirit didn’t mean a traditional game. A deal… the kind that gave him the control he deserved. For that he could put up with whatever it wanted.

The spirit reached out its spectral hand.  _ "Let's shake on it, landlord." _

Ryou awkwardly extended a hand, ready to yank it back if the deal turned out to be some kind of elaborate trick, but he neither had the time to yank it back nor even breathe before he was sucked into the dirty little soul room inside of the Millennium Ring. Ryou shrieked in surprise as he ended up sprawled out flat on his back in the spirit’s domain.

"You can't do this to me! It's my body!"

"And right now it's vacant." The spirit jabbed at his side with its foot and laughed at him. "I said I was going to play with you."

Ryou jolted upwards in surprise. "Y-you're here, too?"

"Where else would I be?" It crouched down and stared at Ryou, eyes filled with far too much satisfaction.

"In the… body?" Something in the back of Ryou’s head was screaming that without either of them in control their body would die, that the spirit had finally killed them both, but the resurgence of his headache helped him to ignore it. 

"No, the body gets to rest." The spirit reached out a hand and touched Ryou's cheek in an attempt to be gentle. A very, very poor attempt. One of its nails scraped against the delicate skin of Ryou’s pale cheek, leaving an ever so slight scratch.

"Ouch!" Ryou squealed and rubbed at his cheek. “Why’d you do that?”

"Hold still, damn it."

"That hurt, damn you. Stupid spirit."

The spirit grabbed a handful of Ryou's hair and yanked it back. "I can hurt you much worse than that if you tempt me to.”

"Ow! Why are you...?" Ryou tried to glare at the spirit, but it held his head back. He couldn’t quite see what it was doing, but he saw its fluff of white hair move then felt teeth on his neck. He tried to pull away, only to find that he was notably weaker than the spirit. Maybe it was the strength of the spirit’s conviction or the fact that he was in its soul room, but Ryou couldn’t even put up a reasonable fight against his own duplicate. The spirit moved up Ryou’s neck, hungry bites turning to curious kisses. 

"Oh, you are such a troublesome boy. I thought you agreed to play with me?" The spirit purred and gently bit its host’s lip.

"You changed what you meant by that and you knew I didn’t expect… I didn’t think play meant..." Ryou tried desperately to figure out how to phrase it. He knew he was tricked, somehow, and something was wrong about this, but he couldn’t articulate just what it was.

"Play can mean a wide variety of things. What, were you hoping I'd challenge you to a game of Monopoly or something?”

"I had thought you were going to… I wasn’t sure, to be honest. I didn’t know you could touch me.” 

"What, would you prefer that I not?"

Ryou wasn’t quite sure of that, but there was something he was sure of. "I would prefer that, when I make an agreement, I know the full terms first!”

"Then you should have asked for the full terms."

Ryou chewed so intently on his lip that he broke the skin. No, the spirit was trying to make him think that it was his fault, but it was wrong. "You intentionally tricked me."

"You don't need to tell me that. I know. It was intentional."

"If you did it on purpose, then it's your fault! Don’t try to convince me otherwise!"

"I'm not denying it. Now open your mouth."

"Why?" Ryou reflexively put a hand over his mouth.

"So I can take your first kiss."

“W-why do you want that?" His cheeks turned a pale crimson and he looked away.

"Because I don't want anyone else to take something that precious from you." The spirit growled slightly and snatched Ryou’s hand away. Being aroused almost made it honest. Almost.

"What if someone already had?"

The spirit was on him in an instant, forcing his arms above his head. "I would kill them."

"I'm not your property!" Ryou struggled to free himself as panic rose in his chest. This wasn’t control. 

"You're my host. Mine." The spirit gently bit his ear. "Isn't that your favorite word? 'Mine?'"

He closed his eyes, trying not to whimper as tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. The spirit assumed that it had come too far to back off at this point and Ryou would probably end up pissed at it either way, so it wrestled down Ryou's arms again, pinning them with one hand while its other hand rested on Ryou's chin. 

"You can play nice, or I can hurt you again."

Ryou stared up at his captor, anger in his eyes. He wasn’t going to be obedient, definitely not now. 

"Fine then." The spirit pressed its lips against Ryou's, fully expecting to be bitten. There was an attempt, but it did little as the spirit was intent on selfishly making the most of the moment despite Ryou’s best efforts. It squeezed Ryou’s cheeks, making it impossible for him to bite down properly. Ryou tried to vocalize something, but was unable to form his words properly with his mouth held in such a fashion. Somewhere between the fifth and seventh lustful, angry kiss the spirit forgot what it was doing and Ryou relaxed, just accepting it. There was something odd about tasting what was almost his twin on his lips, but he shut his eyes and tried to calm himself.

The spirit kissed the same way it ate meat. Quickly, angrily, and like it hadn’t done so in three thousand years. There was a notable difference in their body heat, and it was suddenly clear as to why it hated the cold.

Ryou pulled away again, this time out of physical discomfort. He mumbled something unclear as he tried to move. It worked to some extent, as the spirit released his jaw and kissed down Ryou’s neck again. Then, with a soft laugh, it released him.

“You’re so warm” breathed Ryou. It wasn’t what he’d expected from a ghost, but the other’s skin had been hot to the touch. He hadn’t been able to tell if it was human heat or something else, but… it wasn’t an expected discovery, so it was a disturbing one. The spirit caught one of his arms and pulled him back onto its lap. "This… isn't what I agreed to..."

"It most definitely is."

"This is what you  _ tricked _ me into!"

"Tricking you into something technically means you agreed to it."

"Yes, but unfairly."

"Cheating is fun."

"N-no, it's against the rules..."

"You're on top now." It let Ryou settle on its lap. "So you're the one in charge of me."

Ryou sat up uncertainly. That seemed to him like just another part of the spirit's game. "If I'm the one in charge of you, then you have to do what I say."

"Well then, we both know what we're here to do."

"Let me out, you cheating fucker.”

“Now you're cheating. Is my general nastiness transmissible through the air or something?"

"If you want to abide by no cheating, then you have to let me out, since you got me in here by cheating. If you don't want to abide by no cheating, then let me out because it's what I told you to do." The spirit shifted Ryou on its lap, pretending to be deep in thought but really just taking an opportunity to rub against him. Ryou grumbled with irritation, throwing his hands up in frustration as the spirit pulled him close, one hand closing around his throat as it nipped at his collarbone. He couldn’t help letting out a soft noise of confusion.

“Be quiet, landlord, I’m still deciding.”

“Deciding...?" Ryou tried to stay focused on anything but his current situation.

"I think better like this."

"Then think quickly."

"Mmmm... I don't know..."

"You're stalling to take advantage of the situation."

"Are you the situation? Because I would really like to take advantage of you." The spirit chuckled and nipped at the back of its host’s neck.

"Yes or no?"

"Yes, I would like to say no." 

“I really, truly hate you in this moment.” Ryou jerked his arms away angrily and folded them across his chest. “I can't stop you from doing what you want, but I'm not going to play along or pretend that I'm participating willingly."

"So, say I were to throw you down and..."

"I would fight you with everything I had. I would kill you, and I don’t care if you’re already dead, I would just kill you again. I won’t let you use me like that.”

The spirit’s grip on Ryou's body tightened almost without it noticing. It still couldn’t decide, however, whether it was worthwhile to hurt his host that way. It cared for Ryou, sure, but there was no way that could last forever. There would have to eventually be an end to everything, and if it was to come soon, as the spirit suspected, did it really have the time to care?

Ryou looked back at his captor with narrowed eyes, but said nothing. One of the spirit’s hands had ended up on his cheek again, and he couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to bite down on it as hard as he could. He was still half surprised when his teeth met bone; the idea of the spirit actually having a solid form was too foreign. Ryou’s mouth filled with the bitter, coppery tang of blood and before what he was doing had even fully registered in his mind, he felt the spirit’s teeth on the back of his neck. They grabbed at each other, each trying to claim dominance, but Ryou was the one who ended up flat on his back again, one of the spirit's hands under his head, cushioning it from the cold stone floor. As soon as he could breathe again, Ryou brought his knee up and slammed it until the spirit’s body as hard as he could. The motion brought both of them over and Ryou found himself on top of the spirit and able to deliver a proper punch. It was awkward and ineffectual, and his knuckles made a terrible sound as they connected with the spirit’s jaw. 

“Oh… fuck, that hurts, how do people do this…?” Ryou hissed softly and shook his hand out.

“My apologies for never teaching you how to properly throw a punch. Let me remedy that.” The spirit hit a lot harder, and a lot lower. Ryou found himself covering his mouth with both hands to avoid throwing up. From behind his his thin, dirty fingers he glared at the spirit, body shaking with a mixture of rage and pain. 

Once the nausea subsided, Ryou wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and tried to compose himself. “Do you still want me to kiss you? Come on, do you?”

The spirit chuckled and nodded. “What kind of question is that?” 

“Well then.” Ryou tucked a bit of his hair behind his ear and leaned down, lips gently brushing against the spirit’s before he bit down on the other’s lips as hard as he could, earning a pained moan as his teeth broke the skin. To his surprise the spirit didn’t try to push him away, but its back arched one hand found its way into Ryou’s hair. That was apparently not the right thing to do, thought Ryou, but he wasn’t exactly in the position to deliver another punch. His mouth was full of blood again, had he swallowed the last bit? It made his stomach turn more than the punch had. Ryou shut his eyes as he started to tear up, hating himself for being part of… whatever was currently going on. He released the spirit’s lip and fell limp against its chest, shivering slightly. Why did everything have to taste like bitter failure?


End file.
